


Welcome to the Roster

by MaeDay (Wolf_Shadow)



Category: Bayonetta (Video Games), Metroid Series, Super Smash Brothers
Genre: F/F, Gen, General friendship fic, Some hits to established Bayonetta/Jeanne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_Shadow/pseuds/MaeDay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doesn’t seem like the Master Hand is very good at orientation for the new Smashers, and Bayonetta isn’t sure she wants to stick around to find out what all this chaos is about. Lucky for her, there is someone who is willing to extend an offer of friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the Roster

The rules of physics didn’t seem to apply here, wherever ‘here’ was.

Bayonetta strode along the hard tile tops of the floating ‘stage’, as it was called, her heels clattering more sharply along the brittle stonework than they should have. She supposed it was because they were prone to shattering in the heat of battle, or so she’d been told by the Master Hand.

And that thought sent an uneasy tingle up her arms, despite the warm sunshine of the area. True, she’s seen (and slaughtered) stranger looking angels in her time than the giant floating hands who seemed to rule this mosaic reality, but there was just something about them that made her leery. No matter how much the other ‘contestants’ seemed to trust them, or at least tolerate them, Bayonetta couldn’t managed much more than vaguely polite sass around them. ‘Master Hand’ was articulate and informative, explaining as much about the world and her situation as she could stand, whereas ‘Crazy Hand’ simply twitched and mumbled gleeful incoherence in her brain.

Telepathy had to be her least favorite form of communication.

She sighed and glanced upward, more that a little perturbed by the secondary floating platform above her that was suspended on a cloud. Like the platform below her feet, it just simply hung there, the cloud sort of spinning in slow languid wisps, but never once shifting position in space. Supposedly, this ‘stage’ was an imprint from the world that belonged to the small boy with wings and his green haired mistress (they apparently being an angel and a goddess respectively, through Bayonetta had never seen either kind of entity look so very human), and it was as warm and bright as most written versions of ‘heaven’ depicted it.

It was a bit ironic that of all the ‘stages’ in the roster, this had been the one randomly selected.

Well, as much as it reminded her of a whiter version of Paradiso, she supposed it would do for the moment. She wasn’t keen on ‘exhiting’ the stage via a plunge that would somehow ‘respawn’ her back to the control center, as the creepy ‘wireframe’ handler explained it.

She sighed again and turned to scan the endless horizon. There were too many unknowns here, too many strange things all at once, she couldn’t get a foothold.

After a pause, she slowly let herself down on the ground, dangling her legs off the edge of the platform, brushing the strands of her suit out of the way as she went so as not to sit on them.

“This doesn’t seem like your type of place.”

Gun instantly in hand, Bayonetta whipped both it and her head in the direction of the voice.  
She found herself aiming at a rather muscular blonde woman in what looked like a blue cat suit. Said woman didn’t so much as flinch at the gun trained on her, walking across the platform with utter indifference and a thoughtful look across her sharp features.

“Oh? Does the sunshine and tilework clash with my outfit?” Bayonetta quipped with a smirk, not lowering the gun although she recognized the blonde as one of the other contestants, or ‘Smashers’ as they all called themselves. “How dreadful, next time I’ll be sure to choose a darker realm to collect my thoughts, something with a bit more flare.”

The corner of the blonde’s lips twitched upward and she stopped a pace before Bayonetta, cobalt colored eyes never once flickering towards the gun trained on her forehead. “I’ve read your file, you don’t strike me as the type to ironically enjoy something like this.” her arm extended and Bayonetta followed the movement sharply, ready to summon her other handgun- only to blink in surprise as she was proffered a can of…. something, it looked like a soda.

“Thought you might like some refreshment, the trip here can be kind of rough.”

She stared at the can, and then glanced back up at the blonde, rather nonplussed.

The other woman shrugged. “I didn’t know what you like, this has been one of my favorites in the last contests, so I grabbed you one as well,” then there was a raised brow, “if you’re worried about being poisoned, don’t be. We’re all civil, mostly, and it wouldn’t work even if sabotage was part of the game.”

Deciding that she didn’t detect any ulterior motive from what seemed to be a straightforward human woman (and those last two bits where not a guarantee, despite what her eyes told her, she’d already seen some very strange creatures milling about who spoke english well enough to rival even Luka’s inane speeches), Bayonetta lowered the gun and then loosened her grip, allowing it to fall easily back into her summon void.

The blonde hummed a note in her throat as Bayonetta accepted the can. “Nice trick.”

“I enjoy it, I’ve found it rather handy on occasion.”

A ghost of a grin flashed over the blondes features, Bayonetta was getting the impression the woman didn’t smile often or for long, and she nodded. “I bet.” she gestured to the ground. “Mind if I sit with you?”

“It seems to be a free…. well, I’m not sure if it’s a world or a universe, but you’re welcome to whatever ground you wish to occupy.” Bayonetta replied airily.

The woman moved with fluid control as she sat, every motion deliberate in a easy kind of way. Between that, her strong build and her hard eyes, Bayonetta concluded this was one of the ‘Veteran Smashers’ the Master Hand had welcomed back with something that could have almost called affection.

“Thank you for the drink, ah…. Do you know, I’m afraid I missed your name?” She kept her tone breezy, all the better to put others off track and allow their tells to show.

“Samus.” the woman replied, her own tone remaining the same neutral alto and entirely unreadable. “Samus Aran, and don’t worry, Master Hand’s introductions are mostly for just show, especially since he doesn’t bother to clarify those of us who fight in more than one style.”

Bayonetta narrowed her eyes. “More than one style?”

Samus nodded once and tapped on the top of her own drink before opening it with a loud ‘crack’. “I’m the big orange suit of armor.”

That clicked over a memory from mere hours ago, the large armored figure with enormous rounded shoulder guards and green cannon encompassing the entire right arm (Rodin would have been over the moon to see such a thing) standing up on the dais and waving a quick hello as ‘she’ was introduced.

“Oh,” she blinked in surprise as Samus took a drink. “So you fight in your armor and like this then? Just in a catsuit?”

Samus cast her a studying look again, humor apparent in her eyes. “Says the woman in a skin tight suit with jewelry hanging from it.”

“Form and function are both important aspects in any outfit, even battle attire.” She glanced up and down Samus once, taking particular note of the oddly mechanical heels she wore. “You’re lacking some of the more eye catching baubles, but I suppose your outfit cut isn’t that much different than mine.” 

Samus snorted and took another drink, reminding Bayonetta of the unopened one still in her hand. “Yea, I suppose you could say that.Although I’ve skimmed your file, and I have to say, I’ve seen some strange things, both in my real life and here in this crazy place, but hair suits? Hair demons?” she shook her head. “That’s a new one.”

“Oh, you haven’t even seen the half of it yet.” Bayonetta winked at Samus, who merely nodded.

“I look forward to seeing you in action then.”

Bayonetta kept her smirk and opened her drink, taking a dainty sip from it. The flood of effervescence sweetness made her blink and pull the can back to look at the labeling, running her tongue over her lips to try and place the taste. “What is this?” she asked Samus, unable to read the odd white markings across the bright red can.

“It’s pop, kind of a dessert drink, it has a lot of sugar and nothing else.”

She cut Samus a sideways look, her grin turning sardonic. “Yes we do have soda where I come from, I mean what flavour is it?” She brought it back to her lips to take another sip-

“Cherry.”

and promptly choked on that sip.

She half laughed, half coughed as she lowered the can, feeling the bright taste pleasantly roll along her tongue. Well, it seemed there were some very fundamental similarities across the multiverses.

“Are you okay?” Samus’ forehead was furrowed and one of her hands was slightly raised, as if she was ready to pat Bayonetta on the back to help clear her airways.

Clearing her throat and giving a hoarse chuckle, Bayonetta noddd. “Yes I’m fine, you just surprised me.”

Though she didn’t fully lose her concerned expression, Samus did raise an eyebrow.

Bayonetta shook her head. “I’m sitting a tiled cloud, next to a woman whom is a space mercenary with a canon on her arm, drinking something as simple and common as a cherry soda.”

Samus gave a half smirk at that. “You’ll probably be surprised a good deal then, there are a lot of things that seem to cross the boundaries of all our universes.”

Bayonetta couldn’t resist, she just couldn’t. “Well that, and cherry just happens to be the favorite flavour of a very dear friend of mine.” she winked, then laughed at her own very personal joke.

Blinking a few times, Samus seemed to decide that she wasn’t going to question the joke, which was very slightly disappointing. It would have been somewhat delicious to see if the stoic woman was capable of blushing at her explanation. 

They were silent for a moment, both turned back out towards the endless blue sky all around them. It looked as if it went on forever, perhaps into infinite in every direction, or perhaps it was a simple illusion and the boundaries of the stage merely reflected an infinity.  
It was mind numbing to think of for too long.

Thankfully, Samus broke the silence.

“Don’t worry about your friend.”

Well, that was unexpected.

She looked back over at Samus with mild amusement.

“Jeanne may be a bit reckless, but she can take care of herself, I assure you.”

“No, I mean,” Samus made a face and drew one of her legs back up, resting her heel against the ground and draping her arm over her knee, “You don’t need to worry about your world, or your life back home, your family, friends, while you’re here.”

Oh. She hadn’t had a chance to even consider that yet, far too preoccupied with trying to understand her own situation to think about what Jeanne was up too. Probably panicking over her sudden disappearance, the thought made her wince. 

“Time sorta freezes in your own universe when you’re here.”

Bayonetta had to study her face to make sure she wasn’t joking. “Truly?” She asked at length, when Samus’ neutral face yielded her nothing.

“I don’t know the science of it,” Samus shrugged, then grimaced, “Or the magic, which is equally possible, but it’s true. Everyone has a slightly different story, but we all sort of… ‘wake up’ back where we left. Nothing’s changed, no time has passed, doesn’t matter how long we’ve been here, weeks or months, when you go home you pick up right where you left off.” She took a drink and looked over at Bayonetta. “We’ve asked the Hands about it, Master says it’s essentially a temporal time displacement lock-”

“Which in English means?” Bayonetta interjected.

“When they bring us here, however they do that, our absence locks time in place until we return.”

She blinked. “Well, that sounds quite difficult to accomplish.”

With another shrug, Samus continued. “If you ask Crazy, he tries to explain the mathematical formula and application, but I’ve followed that as best I can, and I think he’s using equations that exist outside of my reality.”

Raising her hand to rub at her temples, Bayonetta seriously considered if this experience would be worth all the headaches she could envision in her future.

Samus seemed to read her mind. “Trust me, as a ‘Veteran’” and she used the titled with some vague amusement. “I can promise you it’s not worth trying to decipher beyond that. Just know that your ‘friend’,” and there was the faintest of knowing grins “Jeanne, will be fine, and so will you, when the contest is over, you’ll be back home right where you left it, it will be like you never left.”

“Did I leave at all then?” 

Samus squinted at her, and her empty hand drummed her fingertips against her leg. “Good question, I’m not entirely sure of the answer. If it helps, you will remember this place, all the things you do here, your fights, your conversations, everything. It may fade for you in time, for most of us it does, starts to feel like a very distant dream, but it will be in your mind, so that’s a kind of real, no matter how you look at it.”

Bayonetta hummed a note of understanding, gazing off into the distance as she thought about this.

There was another pause between them before Bayonetta shifted her position and tipped her can to the empty sky. “Well, I suppose I’ve had worse dreams, and if this place has cherry soda, it can’t be all that bad.” She then tipped her head to the side in her usual coy way, already feeling a bit of her swagger coming back. “I might as well stick around, see what other kind of fun I can find.”

The full smile spreading across Samus’ face was surprising, but the beauty of it was not. In a way, her sharp features reminded Bayonetta of Jeanne, and it gave her sudden pang of homesickness.

Though the next sentence took away any regret that might have been carried in her decision.

“I’m glad I could convince you to stay for a while, you held your ground very well for a new contestant, but you did look ready to bolt after about the third minute of Master explaining things. I think you’ll enjoy your time here, and it’s always nice to see more female Smashers join us.”

“Yes well, I can hardly argue with a pretty woman asking me to stick around, can I?” Bayonetta winked at her again, pleased when the action only earned her a slight eyeroll. Samus was going to be fun to tease. “Come to think of it though, and you’ll have to forgive my manners, but you don’t seem like the normal welcoming committee.”

Samus took one last drink and then easily crushed the can in her bare hands, Bayonetta had to admire the ripple of muscle across her arms as she did so. “You would be right, I’m not exactly a people person, but the others seemed to think I might be the best one to explain things.”

It was Bayonetta’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “And what exactly inspired that thought in the minds of your fellow ‘Smashers’, hm?”

“Apparently, you and I appear to be similar in many ways.”

Bayonetta blinked, and looked Samus over. “A rather nice suit over a fine figure,” still no blush, Samus was a hard one to crack, “deadly heels,” she tapped her own together once. “and,” well she hadn’t really noticed that before now, but that was a striking similarity, “a well placed beauty mark. Hmm I suppose I could see where their logic is coming from.”

“That, and they probably find you intimidating.”

She laughed. “I get the feeling that might be another trait we have in common.”

With a low chuckle, Samus got to her feet. “You’re right about that, don’t worry, sometimes being intimidating can be helpful, some of these guys can be real knuckleheads.” she offered Bayonetta a hand.

She didn’t need it, but she took it anyway. It seemed as much a symbolic act of friendship as an actual help, and at least a friendly acquaintance would be nice to have in this strange new place.

“Oh don’t I know it. Now,” she placed her free hand on her hip and glanced around. “Is there any other way to leave this place besides leaping into the abyss?”

“Unfortunately no,” Samus gestured down. “You can enter a few ways, but there’s only one way out.”

“I was afraid you would say that.”

“Tell you what,” Samus mirrored her posture, “we’ll respawn in the control room and from there I’ll take you to the living quarters, make a few introductions and show you your room, the Hands are very good at giving us all a living space we’re comfortable in.”

“Throw in another drink and a few more explanations, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Done.” Samus stuck out a hand, and Bayonetta shook it without thinking, again surprised at the similar gesture that also existed in whatever far away place Samus came from.

“See you on the other side then?” Bayonetta asked as they released hands.

“Wouldn’t miss it. Oh, one last thing, don’t look down on your way, you’ll make yourself dizzy.” Samus touched two fingers to her forehead in some kind of salute, then backed off the platform and fell of the ledge.

There was a rumble and a bright flash of light before Bayonetta had time to look over. Were Samus should have been still falling was just endless open air. She could easily understand that last word of warning.

She sighed, suddenly feeling drained and a touch homesick, funny how easy it was to feel that. After twenty years of never feeling at home, at ease, she found the sensation so pleasant that she missed it after only a few hours.

Still, she had to admit that this Samus Aran was right, there seemed to be no end of intrigue to be had in this place, and after all, when was the last time she’d taken a vacation?

“I’ll be home soon Jeanne,” She said to the silence space. “at least I know you can’t get into any trouble without me, though I think I’ll be getting into plenty myself.” she smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll even miss your lectures while I’m gone, I’ll be glad to hear them all when I tell you all my stories.”

She lept backwards into space, and let herself fall.

Onto a new adventure she went.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to write something for Bayonetta in Smash, there is too much fun to be had. That and She and Samus seem to share a bunch of odd traits, I just had to play on that. :)
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, and Happy smashing everyone!  
> (Ps this is un-betaed so there may be a few typos or grammar mistakes XD sorry about that, I went over it several times but i might have missed something.)


End file.
